Day 65 (30 July)

The last transition day...

It's a bit of a belter, too -- we left our lofty, turkey-frequented abode at 11.00, in the sure and certain knowledge that we wouldn't be on the train till 23.20, and wouldn't be in our Baku apartment until 14.00 tomorrow...

At least the mountain breeze takes the edge off the heat...

We decided we'd spend the day at the Xan Sarayi, the compound that houses (among other things) the bigger of the Sheki khanate's two palaces (we visited the Winter Palace yesterday). Disappointingly, the palace itself is closed at the moment, so you can catch only glimpses of its splendours:





But there were enough other points of interest in the complex to keep us going for several hours. For example:

-- Sitting for a while in the shady courtyard of Abad, a heritage pottery enterprise;



-- Having a really tasty and reasonably-priced meal at the little cafe (dovgha, a delicious yogurt soup, served cold, and dolma, which in Sheki are vine-leaf balls stuffed with mutton and rice, and served in a pot);


-- Perusing the craft market, where I bought a purple camel-wool scarf to replace my beloved pashmina (now showing its age);



-- And taking a look in the Albanian church, which is now an eclectic little museum.








After dinner back at Calabi Xan, and a little while spent sitting in the park next door just watching the Sheki evening world go by, it was time to climb the hill again to collect our luggage and rendezvous with the taxi that our hosts had organized.


The station is about 20 km from town, back along the route we'd driven from Balakan. The taxi cost AZN 10 (and the driver also complained about the quality of the road...)


We'd splashed out on a two-berth compartment for this trip. The sleepers are really good value, at less than AZN 20 per berth (MYR 48 or GBP 9.70). The space is configured to give you two bottom bunks, so no-one has to go shinning up aloft to reach the top bunk. By midnight, we'd climbed on board, made up our beds, and gone to sleep, kept pleasantly cool by a very efficient aircon.

Day 66 (31 July)

We woke up to the Baku suburbs, after a really pretty good night's sleep. There had been a bit of bumping and banging as we amalgamated with another train at Yevlakh, but otherwise the journey was quiet and smooth.

So..., we've arrived...

Our project was to travel over land and sea from London to Baku, and that we have done.

But the trip is not finished yet. We're not heading straight off, so we have a few days to enjoy our final destination.

Baku station is a little trying. It's glitzy and smart-looking. But the free wifi doesn't work. The exchange office was still closed at lunchtime. None of the food outlets is open early for breakfast. And the advertised left-luggage lockers -- which we desperately needed because of the not-checking-in-until-14.00 thing -- were out of action. When we asked at the Information desk about this, the guy said, "Well, there's a lady who looks after the toilets who might take charge of your bags for a while." What?? But there was, and she did, for AZN 10.

Good things about the station, however, include little workstations where you can replenish your phone battery, and a nice little cafe called Taste, which did us a very good lunch.

But I'm jumping ahead...

Like many modern cities, Baku is a martyr to its traffic. But it has many fine qualities.

One is a cafe called Cafe City, which (if you can wait till 9 am) is a great place to go for breakfast. I loved their firni porridge (a creamy, slightly sweet rice-flour concoction, with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top).


Another is its architecture. People joke about Baku being a cross between France and Dubai, but there's a lot of truth in that observation. Personally, I think Malaysia has got into the mix as well.








Baku's third curiosity is its location on the Caspian. Admittedly, in the middle of the day, from a sun-ravished Bulvar, the oil-sheened sea doesn't look that flash. But it's the Caspian! First time...


Yandex doesn't work in Azerbaijan, but in Baku you can use Bolt to hail a cab. So it cost just AZN 4 to get from the railway station (having relieved the toilet lady of our luggage) to our rented apartment on the edge of the old town.

Love the building... Somewhere up there it says 1961, but it has the feel of an older construction, that's seen a few changes in life.




The flat itself is a little antiquated, with an extraordinarily lumpy shape, an awkward bathroom, and a persistent mosquito population. But it has functioning wifi, functioning aircon, and a functioning washing machine, all of which make it a really most desirable abode at this point in time.

Close by is a veritable network of pedestrian streets, which beg to be explored early in the morning, when it isn't so damn hot...


We shopped for tea and breakfast supplies at a mini-mart. All across the Caucasus region -- indeed from Greece onwards -- we've been amazed (and baffled, and frustrated) by the labyrinthine, many-cornered, many-levelled, tiny-aisled superettes. But this particular one really takes the prize for its twists and turns, and nooks and crannies.

We've celebrated our arrival with a compendium of relevant beers: Efes from Turkey, Baltika from Russia (standing in for Armenia, where we first came across it), and Xirdalan from Azerbaijan itself.

Because it really feels like something to celebrate:

London to Baku. Tick.